Guseth(Freedom House): Romania, very low absorbtion of European funds caused by extreme level of red tape

Romania has a very low absorption of European funds, due to an extremely high level of red tape, as 80 percent of the effort to implement a project is allocated to supporting documents, Cristina Guseth, Director General of Freedom House Romania told AGERPRES on Thursday. 

"We have a 14 percent absorption rate of European funds during this programming period. Why do we have problems? I believe we have an excessive level of red tape. This bureaucratisation level is also the expression of responsibility opt-out. So one produces paperwork because one doesn't take on responsibilities," Cristina Guseth maintains. 

The Director General of Freedom House Romania affirmed she has worked with public funds in the United States and at the European Commission and in her experience, the complexity level of the paperwork, namely the documents necessary to report these funds, is the lowest in the case of those from the US. 

"In Romania, in my experience of writing projects and from the discussions with people who have implemented them, I have come to the conclusion that it takes 80 percent of the time to produce supporting documents and because of that, one often ends up missing the result," Cristina Guseth specified. 

"In the upcoming programming period, Romania will obtain money in so far as it respects the conditions regarding the rule of law. As of 23 May, the European Commission is working on a project which defines these requirements. For example the Justice's independence, the good functioning of prosecutors' offices, public acquisitions," Cristina Guseth mentioned. 

Freedom House Romania organises on Thursday the conference "Litigation Funding across Europe", an event organised within the OLAF-Hercule III programme, which aims at protecting the financial interests of the European Union in Romania.